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Even More Windows To Go (5/81)

In the last two posts I covered the basics and creating a Windows To Go drive, and today it’s time to discuss creating multiple images at the same time through PowerShell. The best option here is to use a USB 3.0 hub unless your PC has USB 3.0 ports a plenty. Writing to multiple Windows To Go certified drives simultaneously won’t stress a single USB 3.0 connection being shared by a USB 3.0 hub, so you don’t have concerns on that side.

The following scripts were provided on TechNet, so I definitely can’t take credit for them. You need to start by PowerShell as an administrator, and run the following script to prepare the USB drive for Windows To Go.

#Clear the disk. This will delete any data on the disk. (and will fail if the disk is not yet initialized. If that happens, simply continue with ‘New-Partition…) Validate that this is the correct disk that you want to completely erase.

# This command creates the Windows volume using the maximum space available on the drive. The Windows To Go drive should not be used for other file storage.
$OSPartition = New-Partition –InputObject $Disk[0] -UseMaximumSize
Format-Volume -NewFileSystemLabel “UFD-Windows” -FileSystem NTFS -Partition $OSPartition

# This command assigns drive letters to the new drive, the drive letters chosen should not already be in use.
Set-Partition -InputObject $SystemPartition -NewDriveLetter “S”
Set-Partition -InputObject $OSPartition -NewDriveLetter “W”

# This command toggles the NODEFAULTDRIVELETTER flag on the partition which prevents drive letters being assigned to either partition when inserted into a different machine.
Set-Partition -InputObject $OSPartition -NoDefaultDriveLetter $TRUE

Save this as unattend.xml in the sysprep folder on the Windows To Go Drive.

You can also deploy Windows To Go via System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, I’ve included a few screenshots that will walk you through that process as well. Obviously this makes more sense if you have SCCM deployed already.